22 model," and the block man fetches a number of three- or four-dollar repro- ductions, to be "sacrificed at the same price." After Duff's eulogy of the leader, it is not necessary for him to dwell on the virtues of the lumpers, though he may roll out "Sahlid go-o- oald," and finish quickly, after a pause to allow his listeners to take in the gold clause, with the parenthetical "hands and numbers, ladies and gentlemen." If the watch is yellow, it may bear a light "kiss" of gold plating; white gold and platinum are satisfactorily simulated hy cheap alloys. Sometimes w hen he has a fairly large crowd, Duff prefers to en join the shills against boosting and take his own "air" bids, a procedure which requires a sort of double-jointed gaze and a delicate control of the facial muscles. As he holds up a ring and chants, "'Leven dollars-thank you, brother-twelve- thirteen-fourteen," his nodding glance may seem to be directed at someone right near you, but you hear no sound from that direction, and no matter how sharply you look, you win never catch so much as the tail end of a bidding ges- ture. Duff works these imaginary air bids against those of an eager chump. F rom his overseeing position he is better able to tell when the breaking"'point im- pends, and in this way he avoids the danger of the chump's being pushed too far by the shills. The "blue-white dia- lllond" he is working on may be a zir- con (a genuine semiprecious stone, but far from a diamond) set in equally genuine, but hollow, gold. The intrin- sic value is about five dollars. Duff knocks it down for nineteen, and at the same moment flashes one of the rum- my's chimerical competitors a heartfelt "Too late, there, 'Twenty Dollars!' . . . o h, no! . . . I said 'Sold,' and I'm not allowed to take another hid. I'm sorry." Duff may use as a leader a diamond which is a genuine stone, but small and inferior and tipped with blue dye to give it an expensive color. It sets a stiff pace of from five to twenty-five dollars for the rings that follow-the cheap ones pure glass set in base alloy, the higher-priced ones ugly ducklings of the gem family mounted in lightweight gold or platinoid. If you are determined to have he leader and no other, you must bid twice, and probably three times, what it cost the Midtown. When the "push" the barker brought in, supplemented by the drifters curi- osity has added to the crowd meanwhile, seems to have been reduced to a pack . of deadheads, Duff employs an in- genious routine for verifying his sus- picion. Let's say he can't get a single o b O d I d ' " b " gen ulne I on a a y s aguette wristwatch of a slightly better quality than some he has just sold for seven dollars. Duff airs the bid up to six, and then he takes a man's watch from the case behind him and asks if anybody would rather bid the six on that. "No? . . . Say, I'm beginning to think what you people need is watchmen, not watches. But wa-ait a minute! I'm go- ing to knock your eyes out! Would anybody out there"-he dangles the watches together and slaps the counter sharply-"bid me six dollars for the both of them? . . . That is, if I was to sell the both of them for six? Hanh?" If such a bid should be made, Duff would hype the price to fourteen or fif- teen dollars, but generally the crowd has indeed been stripped of rummies by the time he resorts to this test, and re- mains mute. To make sure, Duff heaps a velvet tray with one watch and ring after another, pleading, with each ad- dition, for the same six dollars. "Why, I'll het if I put the building on there," he wails, "you'd say you've got a build- ing, what do you want with another?" Should someone pipe up with "I'd give six for the lot," Duff's answer is "You would? Well, so would I! But re- member, I said if I was to sell the whole lot for six dollars. We're not down to throwing the stock away yet." Such nibbles are rare, and the act usually culminates with "Well, we'll just pass this lot by." And now he announces, pointing to the modest items with which the barker enticed the firstcomers, "Gotta clear out this whole lot." "Lot," in this instance, is the code word for "crowd," and when Duff be- gins to reiterate flatly, "All right, folks, just pick out anything you're interested in and I'll put it up," the shills lead a general exodus. It takes ahout two min- utes to eject a used-up push, and in two more the block man gets up and starts barking for a fresh hatch, again led in by the shills. These chumps win be taken on by the relief auctioneer, while Duff retires to the hack room to rest his la r- fI <;.. 1('1 (( r-;/'\ { 'Iq'í{( \ ') ÁVCiUST 7, 19-37 ynx, and per haps to sip a glass of hot milk. He nurses his throat like an opera singer, limiting himself usually to one cigar a day. As soon as the relief auc- tioneer has worked his push for what they're worth, Duff will jump back into the leading rôle. There is no pretense of sharing the chumps equally between them; the relief man is an understudy and gets his innings only when Duff is forced to retire. T HE Midtown's Mr. Duff was born in the ghetto of New York City thirty-nine years ago. At sixteen he left school and, after a few irksome months in the garment shop where his father worked, took to following the fairs as a pitchman and concession hand, picking up a meagre living and many use- ful knacks. In Atlantic City, the Mecca of the crooked auctioneer, he rose from a job with a gambling-wheel stand to one in an adjacent grind joint, where he helped out at odd moments. His carni- val spiel readily adapted itself to this new profession. For some years after that he travelled from town to town for a firm that bought out bankrupt jewel- ry stores and auctioned off its own coun- terfeit wares as good old] eweler Jones' trustworthy stock. Back in New York, Duff hooked up with one grind joint after another, now in the city, now in Coney Island, until four years ago he found his berth with the Midtown-a stahle concern, as such thIngs go. Duff is a solid citizen these days. He has left the ghetto far behind. Away from the garish Midtown he cultivates an air of respectability which suggests a prosperous salesman for some dignified concern. His wardrobe falls just short of Broadway flamboyance, and his ac- cents now are a shade less elegant than those of a sideshow professor. He has a small, overstuffed apartment up on Riverside Drive, but doesn't spend much time there. His evenings are devoted to dinner at a chophouse, and then a fight, a movie, a Masonic lodge meet- ing, or a smoker. He used to be one of the Minskys' steady patrons. Duff is a bachelor still, but he often presents him- self to his audience as a family man. "Why," he'll scoff, when the bidding is slow, "I'll bet if I put up my mother-in- law, somebody'd bid a dollar. But I'd fool ' ern-I'd say 'Sold! ' " The way things are going, it won't be long be fore Duff can pick up a partner and set up a rival to the Mid- town. So far, he's got seven or eight thousand dollars put away. An auc- tioneer is paid ten per cent of his sales.